


Lamentation

by Maygra



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-12-03
Updated: 2000-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maygra/pseuds/Maygra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Connor MacLeod's Death, Duncan needs to adjust the weight of guilt and loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamentation

The light on the stone porch was on. He should have known. Duncan hadn't expected to come here after leaving Glennfinnan, and yet ...Methos had left the light on.

Or maybe he was just hoping that was the reason.

The shimmery whisper of that presence prickled his spine and tugged at his consciousness;

Duncan knew he was being watched. He thought he saw something in the shadows, just beyond the small pool of the overhead light. He looked up, knowing his features were exposed to the light. The silvery flash of light on steel told him when Methos moved, his face carving out from the shadows surrounding it, his gaze fixed on Duncan's face. A picture perfect study of nonchalance except for the weapon at the ready.

"Are you coming up or did you plan on serenading me?"

The teasing was there, hidden in the soft tones that conveyed both invitation and sorrow. Or maybe it was just a fancy of his own that he could hear it so. "It's late," he said.

"That it is, MacLeod. And a bit cool." Methos stepped back toward the door, gesturing minimally.

Duncan hesitated. It wasn't reluctance. It was merely a feeling that if he had to make one more decision, one more choice, he might choose something he couldn't fix when it all inevitably went wrong.

"Duncan," Methos said, voice deepening but quieter for all that. "Come in. Get warm. Sleep."

"I came by to..." Duncan closed his eyes, the green of hills and the starkness of stone imprinted on his closed eyelids for an instant, and then opened them again. He wasn't sure he could move; his body was too heavy and it felt rooted to the ground.

"It doesn't matter why. Just come in," Methos said and Duncan was sure he heard pleading in the tone. He took a step and then another, slowly, deliberately clearing the stairs and the landing, finally passing Methos on his way inside.

A fire burned in the grate. He could feel the warmth even here, at the edge of the threshold, washing the sharper chill of the outside from his face and his clothes; Methos came in behind him and shut the door to close off the draft. Duncan lifted his hands to his coat, noticing his fingers were numb and not very coordinated, but he managed to get it off before Methos could offer to help. He did let his host take the coat and hang it up, then headed to the light and warmth before Methos could urge him there.

He was wary of touch. Not so much for mood as for that fragile sense of connection he wasn't sure he was ready for. Afraid it might interrupt the equally fragile sense of connection he was losing as the hours passed.

"Have you eaten anything?"

"I stopped for dinner on the way back," he said but didn't demure when Methos opened a decanter and pulled two snifters from the rack to warm. He managed to take the offered glass without touching Methos. He sipped at the brandy while he stared at the low flames, and heard Methos settle behind him on the divan.

Without turning, Duncan listened to the soft rasp of paper, pages turning, at more or less regular intervals, while the silence between them seemed right. He stayed where he was near the grate, sipping his brandy, until the heat became too much to bear and he turned, putting his back to the fire. Methos looked up when he moved and met Duncan's eyes briefly before directing his attention down to his book again.

Unerringly, Methos' hand reached out to find his own snifter, picking it up and sipping it without lifting his eyes from the text. Duncan found himself tracking every movement from the way Methos' fingers parted to let the stem of the glass slide between them to the curve of them as only the tips cradled the blown glass. His other hand steadied the book against his crossed legs, gripping the top to hold both pages flat. He paused a fraction before drinking, sniffing the contents then opening his mouth to take a tiny sip and swallowing slowly, the liquid lingering in his mouth for a moment.

Duncan couldn't see his eyes, just the lashes: smudged black charcoal against pale cheeks falsely blushed by the reflected light of the fire. His cheek bones appeared sharper from this angle, his nose less prominent. His lips thinned briefly then relaxed.

"You're staring, MacLeod." Then the eyes were revealed, bright, color changing from the light hazel to something darker by reflected light and uncertain shadows.

"I am," Duncan agreed and feeling sufficiently warmed, moved to occupy the other end of the divan.

Methos watched him, although Duncan did not look his way again as he sat. But he could see him in his peripheral vision and heard the book close lightly.

"The stone met with your approval?"

Duncan snorted, partially relieved that it had been Methos and not himself that had breached the cause of their silence – given him permission to speak, so to speak. It was a tacit understanding of his mood and why he was here and even, vaguely in his own way, acknowledging that the anger Duncan felt toward Methos might even be distantly justified.

"Not much to represent his life – who he was."

"It's as much as most men get and maybe more accurate than some," Methos said. He was leaning forward now and staring at the fire, hands loosely clasped between his knees.

Duncan bit back the sharp retort. His anger, low kindled but steadily simmering, was too quick to lash out at any provocation. But this wasn't the source or cause for it. "It is..." he reluctantly agreed. "Husband of Heather" summed up all that was important in Connor's life or, if not all, the single most constant thing. It made Duncan wish he had known her, met her, seen for himself how one woman, one person, could leave such a legacy in the heart of another.

"Did you know her. Heather?" Duncan asked.

The book in one hand, the glass in another, Methos finished the last swallow of brandy. "No. I didn't know her. I met Conner later. After you were born."

There was a slight pause on the 'after' and Duncan filed it away. "Friends."

"Of a sort," Methos said. "Wary friends. Friendly acquaintances."

"He came to you – about the sanctuary."

"Yes."

Those being interrogated didn't tell more than they were asked. Methos was an old hand at this and Duncan stared at him for a long moment, but his gaze was not returned. "Did he know who you are?"

The look Methos gave him was familiar and no more aggravating than usual, but it was enough to fan Duncan's low simmering rage into something a little hotter and brighter. "And you just sent him off. You could have—"

"Called you? Don't be an ass," Methos said and sat back, still relaxed – outwardly, but his voice was filled with tension. "This was never about you, Duncan."

It was a slap in the face and Duncan thought it was undeserved and the unfair bite of it cut deeply. "It had more to do with me than you," he shot back.

"But he didn't come to you, did he?" Methos said quietly. His gaze was steady but hard. "Not ten years ago and not after he was out. You had to go find him. And the only reason he let you find him is that eventually Kell would have found you as well. That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"So you backed him on this? I should have known."

"Yes, well, I should have known Microsoft was going to become a powerhouse. If I had, I'd be a whole lot richer than I am," Methos said dryly. "You were the last, Duncan. The last thing he held dear. He did exactly what you would have done."

"I'd never have committed myself to that pit of horrors voluntarily," Duncan said harshly, getting to his feet. He should leave. This was getting them nowhere and he really, honestly – he admitted to himself –didn't want to lose another friendship over this.

"I wasn't talking about sanctuary." Methos was looking at him, eyes less hard and resolute. "And neither were you. He's dead, Duncan. Let him rest in peace. He's earned it, don't you think?"

That was fair and honest. And true. "I wasn't ready to lose him."

"We never are." Methos got to his feet approaching Duncan slowly, stopping a foot away from him. "It wasn't your choice. It was /never/ your choice."

"It never is." The impressions rattling around in his brain increased, but there was nothing he recognized. No images he could use to place Conner there or then, or even himself, here, now, with his kinsman, his brother's soul meshing and colliding with his own.

Yet he'd felt it during the fight with Kell. So powerful, Duncan wasn't sure his sanity would survive. Yet he'd given in to Conner, to that presence, powerful and unrelenting in his pursuit to finish what had been started centuries ago on a black night in Glennfinnan.

And now that feeling was gone, the edges worn thin, the gloss turned to haze, the images and sensations unconnected. All that was left were a few well-worn memories, and he didn't want to lose those too.

He felt Methos' hand on his arm, heard his voice, those words layering in on top of the images that were quickly fading. He concentrated on them even while he was being led across the fire-lit room to the hall beyond, to another room with a bed and a smaller fire in the grate. Warm and welcoming, if he let himself see it. Instead, it merged into an older room of stone with a fire and a softer feminine voice coaxing him to lay down, to rest.

Methos was right. It had never been his choice because of voices like his father's, like Connor's, like Methos', telling him no, don't give up the fight. Don't quit --

But Methos had, once. And Connor had.

Duncan had tried – twice, but he was never allowed to rest. Methos had pulled him back both times, once by inaction, by refusing to take Duncan's head, and once by action, by refusing to let Duncan give up his head to O'Rourke.

And Conner had as well, by refusing to surrender to Kell. Or had that been himself? Duncan didn't know anymore and the voices that told him to rest weren't offering any other kind of counsel or advice.

No choices, ever.

He couldn't call it dreaming, not even after the night was through. Maybe it should have been because he wasn't awake, wasn't really aware, except he was – aware of air currents in the room, wafts of chilliness settling across cheek and brow in a cold caress only to have them chased away again by fingers of warmth. Light flaring briefly in the darkness, then fading, but leaving behind it the same cocooning warmth he was sure he'd never feel again. Another draft but not cold, only scented, masculine and natural and familiar – here it was brandy and wood smoke, there it was clean wind and heather. A hint of a throaty chuckle but not something he heard, only felt, the same way he felt the coolness of long fingers along the back of his head, delicate and light and a murmured shush of sound.

All of it he knew – the weight and feel of it. Grief. Not a new thing certainly, not even banished for any length of time to let him recover his bearings, to find some reason in between the grief to not hate living so much.

He did wake, once, to see an effigy of stone, granite and pink marble, sitting in the chair at the end of the bed, hawk face still and silent as the stone he'd left in the highlands. Just as hard, just as enduring, and the words written there no more summed up the total of his watchful gargoyle than did the words etched on a headstone.

Tombstone.

He mulled the word over in his mind. They both fit. Headstone for the lack of one. A head, that was, he thought in the fitful logic of near exhaustion and quiet anger. Tombstone too for that was where he was now, locked away and silent in a way not even the trappings of the misnamed sanctuary had made him feel.

How fitting that Death should be his guardian this night. Any night. Herald and harbinger, still as stone and just as resolute. Later he thought he hadn't really wakened at all because the soft sounds of grief that came to him could never have been made by a statue. Not crying – no tears were shed, no real apologies made. He could hear it, though, in the breathing so steadfastly controlled, in the way the fire was built up again to provide light and warmth but mostly light. Surely if this were a dream -- a reflection of his own troubled spirit, Methos would speak, if only to himself – to the dreamself that kept Duncan company. Or he would see that pale face and dark head be dropped and obscured in hands that were made to carry such tears as Duncan couldn't shed.

None of it came to pass though and when he did wake, with the terrible anticipation of the night gone, it was to a weak but shining sun, to a fire burned low in the grate and the chair back against the wall where it had begun the night.

He was dressed as he had been the night before, missing only his boots, and those were dropped carelessly at the side of the bed, his coat over the chest near the wall. He found the bathroom, and tried to comfort himself with the necessary business of waking up and looking, if not presentable, at least not disreputable.

The scent of coffee lured him on through rooms he was familiar -- but not intimate -- with. Methos, at least, had changed clothes – or at least exchanged their colors from one day to the next because they were the same. Same fabric and make – probably of the same rack or catalog; "five of those, all colors and six of those, three in black, two in dark blue, one in brown."

The brown slacks had won out, and the cream sweater. Snow on dirt.

"I should go. Get clothes," Duncan said and accepted the offered cup without having asked for it and gave no thanks for its deliverance.

"Your bag's in the car, yes?" Methos' eyes met his, briefly.

Brown, this time, Duncan decided. Not grey or the hazy green grey of the highland gorse and heather and weak weeds. Methos' head turned, and his eyes were back to the color that Duncan didn't know what to call – as shifting and still the same as Methos' wardrobe. "Did you bring it up?"

"No. It was cold."

It sounded just like Methos and even the slight flare of irritation was somehow reassuring. Catering to nothing, and taking care of ...everything, Duncan had to admit, sipping his coffee without the benefit of sugar or cream. It seemed appropriate to taste something more bitter than the bile that rose at the back of his throat.

The bell at the door rang and Methos left off his preparation of whatever it had been he was making – bread and butter, not toast, with some preserves. Duncan helped himself, then remade what had been there before stalking off to find his bag or his keys. Or his sword for that matter.

The keys were on the table in the room he'd slept in and he gathered them and his coat and went out, the day clear and chill enough to burn his cheeks. It didn't matter, the car would be warm; he tossed his coat in the back seat only to realize his bags weren't there.

He cursed softly. He'd planned on slipping out, before he saw Methos again. Every reminder of Connor's rejection hurt him, and that included looking at his friend, and knowing that he'd failed, that Connor had turned to Methos rather than to him.

The scene at the door from the night before was replayed in broad daylight, only this time Methos was armed with a letter opener instead of a sword. He wielded it with the same grace and flash of light on the metal edge – it made Duncan's teeth ache, that bright gleaming of light on metal – a flash of light, a kiss of air and blood and power everywhere. But it was only the tearing of paper and the flash of a red seal, Methos watching him with a patience that bordered on impatience. "I got them."

He should leave now and damn the clothes. Yet he hovered there, unwilling to pass Methos to get them or to turn his back and leave without them.

It was Methos who left, for a moment showing that same stillness, so still he might have been a gargoyle at the gate. He simply looked, or let Duncan look, and then turned his back and went inside, leaving the door open.

It had been easier to climb the hill to Conner's grave than to mount those stairs again, but once there, with no sign of Methos anywhere, he closed the door behind him.

Clothes then, since that was ostensibly why he had come back, and he found his bag and his sword, spread out on a bed that had had the covers pulled back up, but wasn't really made. The bathroom had towels and hot water enough; the shower felt better than the silence. When he emerged, his coat was back on the bed. Apparently Methos was willing to play fetch and carry but he wasn't willing to be Mac's valet. When he was dressed, he wandered back to the living room, seeking his host. He didn't find Methos, spending he didn't know how long looking out the window at the tiny, but well kept, enclosed garden at the back of the house.

He found what he was seeking without benefit of searching. He smiled without meaning to when he spotted Methos in the garden, a small basket on one arm and a pair of shears in his hand, crouching among the potted plants and low shrubs, gathering herbs. Shrubby rosemary and matted thyme, fennel well past wilting. A press of his hand against the windowpane and cooler air came in, but the expected waft of aroma didn't follow.

Quiet and still, and he hated the silence, because it reminded him of what was gone. Conner's presence had slipped away from him, and he hadn't noticed. He was fairly certain it had been there when he woke, still there when his anger had taken him so swiftly to the car. There were memories yet, but they were as they had been with no real sharpness to their existence.

When he looked again, Methos was gone as well. Brief, blind panic brought his breath too quickly into his lungs, dizzying his perceptions, and he reached for the window, hoping to drag in something of the outside, when all his insides were closing in and tightening up and darkening. But the window was closed and the dizziness stilled by a touch; Methos was right in front of him, no distance in his eyes and his eyes were his own, back to shifting greens and browns and greys.

Then the world tilted, and Duncan was forced to rely on Methos' hands to guide him; they didn't move and didn't speak, and the warm clasp of fingers on his neck and on his shoulder was a sign that he wasn't alone or mad or dreaming.

He should be wailing his grief, he thought, screaming it, singing it to the heavens and beyond. The loss should be a deep chasm from which nothing could emerge -- but it wasn't. It was only a vague sense of missing, of knowing that there was no recovery or return possible, that regret would be the one constant and relief the other.

It shamed him. It dishonored his kinsman's memory. Made Methos' kindness once more impossible to bear and equally impossible to refuse. "I won't be beholden to you for this," he said, the fear giving way to anger once more.

The hands fell away but it was no stranger that faced him, only a mirror, anger matching his own. Fear as well, but at first, he missed that part of it. Methos' voice betrayed him.

"Nor will I," Methos said, neither coldly or flatly; Duncan found himself more stunned than angry.

Why would he be beholden? What did Methos owe him if he wouldn't explain, if he had done what he could, when he could, and for whom he could? "He charged you with seeing after me," Duncan said slowly, as realization dawned. It was not friendship that made Methos act this way, it was an obligation, a promise to Connor. 'Look after Duncan', a child given up to foster care. It different kind of anger, at a betrayal he didn't know was possible. That Methos would do this for Conner and not for himself.

And that they thought he could not look after himself.

Mirrored again and then doubled. He decided later he was lucky Methos hadn't decked him. "He asked me a question. One question only, and it wasn't 'will you look after Duncan for me?' It had nothing to do with you at all."

And this had everything to do with him, Duncan thought as he watched Methos retreat once more. Retreat. Disengage. There was no battle to be won here, nothing between them for all that Duncan wanted there to be. Something to erase the fight that had happened and that he had both won and lost. Something to take the bitterness of victory from him.

Rosemary stung his nostrils, and the thyme, the whisper of dried lavender. Methos ignored him as he stuffed and packed and oiled and pushed small potatoes and onions and dill into the dish around a dead fish and slid the whole thing into the oven. Without a word, Duncan moved to clear off the broken bits of herbs and the splatters of oil on the worktable, letting the fragrances linger on his fingertips. The space cleaned, Methos refused to look at him, folding the dish towel into ever smaller squares until its bulk could no longer hold the folds and it flopped untidily on the counter.

They let the silence stretch again, even when Methos put on the kettle for tea and then broke out a bottle of whiskey. Methos was, perhaps, more familiar with this feeling of separation than Duncan. Had he felt this on the loss of Kronos? Three thousand years to four hundred – that he'd been able to let go at all left Duncan breathless. That he'd done it for Duncan made him flush again.

Or had he?

It was never his choice. It had been Methos' and now, then, Conner's. A choice he'd taken from Kate, that Faith had never forgiven him for and now never could. Or maybe had from wherever she was. Would he let go of this then, beyond whatever veil life provided to whatever came after, if anything? Even if it were nothing. He'd have to die to find out and the old panic rose as he looked at Methos.

This time Methos was still standing there, looking down at the counter, arms spread and braced against the tile, shoulders hunched from the weight of his upper body. Or from his own grief and that would most likely not be for the dead.

What was there to do but reach out then, to curl fingers into tight muscle, to let fingers wander over warm skin and the silk brush of hair against skin? He'd seen Methos grieve, for Alexa, for Byron even, shedding his grief for the latter in a bottle of whiskey and more silence and the former with a stone and words that meant something then and now. Life was too short. For mortals, for Immortals: it didn't matter – there was never enough time when you suddenly ran out of it. Kronos had seen that much.

And Conner had finally run out of life before time quit on him. A rare thing indeed, Duncan thought as his hands tightened on flesh and muscle. He could make no apology and he didn't think Methos wanted one, but the tension eased under his hands.

Methos looked up to see beyond the window, pushing off so that Duncan had to either step back or change his embrace completely.

He stepped back and got a small, wry smile from Methos as the kettle began to sing.

They had tea. Then they had lunch, the day blurring and sorting itself out in a series of tiny events and moments. A phone call to Joe as much to reassure as to hear a voice that time hadn't claimed yet. The unpacking of clothes and moving his car further off the drive to sit beside Methos' which left the rosemary scent lingering again as a stray bit of escaping herb struggled to survive among the stones and cobble.

They passed each other and sat together to eat, and then passed each other again: Duncan to the garden to be free of the walls of the house, Methos to his books and his mail, to his silent contemplation of whatever thoughts passed his awareness. Nothing even vaguely approximating conversation was exchanged until the day's faint sunlight gave way to night's fierce darkness, and Duncan felt the fragile peace he'd found unraveling once again. He didn't pick up his keys even when the thought of going out to dinner crossed his mind; instead, he built the fire up as Methos poured the brandy, their cold supper feeling not so cold.

After dinner, he waited, feigning sleep, to see if his guardian would return or if he had imagined last night out of his own desire to be not so alone.

Or maybe Methos knew him and thought the crisis had passed, leaving no need to watch over him

The fire burned low, and no spirit came to build it up again until Duncan did, shivering in the chill against bare skin as he pulled wood from the bin and added it until the room was warm again.

It was no sound or instinct, only a restlessness, the acknowledgement that this night was not like the previous, nor would the next be the same, but that eventually they would all blur into one as all those behind him had. The hall was dark but not as pitch, and he found his way, a low glow from a crack in the door, the shifting of low shadows as another fire burned near to out.

His gargoyle was there, but not on guard, merely still, staring at the few flickers without moving to build them high again. Unwilling or unable, so Duncan did it for him, then rose, wondering that Methos did not move or even acknowledge him. The bed was still made, no one had slept in it tonight, and no one had slept in it the night before. It took effort to sit behind Methos on the bed, to reach between the distance the end of the bed and the chair Methos slouched in, but it was worth it to feel the tension slide away much faster than it had in the kitchen. Methos' head dropped back slightly and he shifted, letting Duncan's touch speak for them both for long moments that were filled only with the sound of both of them breathing and the crack and pop of green wood giving up the last of its life.

When Duncan's hands stilled, neither of them noticed for a long time, and Duncan didn't realize he had leaned forward. Now only Methos' breathing moved the flesh under Duncan's hands. A brush of fabric, of the fine hairs on the pale skin, still slightly red from where Duncan's thumb had brought blood to the surface.

He brushed again, watching the skin flush along the side of Methos' neck, wondering what part of grief desire fit into. Another brush that was not of comfort and Methos moved his head slightly, a soft exhalation of sound all that gave Duncan permission to continue.

He did; tracing the tendon from ear to shoulder and back again to the line of jaw, tilting Methos' head back fractionally while supporting his neck with his other hand. He rose, to see Methos' face, wondering at his own mistimed intentions.

Methos moved, pulling himself out of his languor with effort, a flush on his cheeks that could have been from the heat of the fire. He rose as well, turning to face Duncan: his face, his expression, all lost in shadows once more.

Duncan was just lost.

It must have shown because Methos' hands came to guide him once more, strong and sure, laid along his neck and his shoulder. When he breathed again it was Methos' breath he took, drawing it in with relief, tasting Methos with a hunger that startled him.

Then it was over and Duncan felt chilled, unable to reclaim that warmth as he could not reclaim Conner's presence in his mind.

"Go to bed, Duncan," Methos said in a rough, bitter voice that would have held tears had it been anyone but Methos, who wept when he needed to and didn't fight the tears back. Who could scream his grief with every bit of oxygen in his lungs.

Being so dismissed left Duncan angry again but this time he listened to it, heard in Methos' voice what hadn't been said earlier – what he hadn't said earlier. "I won't be beholden to you for this," he said softly and waited to see if he had misjudged, misread, mistaken, misstepped yet again. He glanced at the fire. "You do realize that central heating would save you a fortune in firewood and coal?"

Methos merely stared at him, but the tight, drawn expression was gone. Then he smiled, by fractions, a twitch of lips, the raising of his eyebrows, mouth parted to speak or laugh. "I have central heating. I don't like the way the gas smells," he said after a moment of near laughter. "Are you...suggesting we consolidate resources?"

"Isn't that what we've been doing?" Duncan asked, the layers and layers of meaning under those words peeling back like papers blown from a table. Each one exposing more explanation and making the truth more immediate.

Methos frowned, slightly, as if it hadn't occurred to him and Duncan thought perhaps it hadn't and maybe this was as much a surprise to Methos as to anyone else in the immediate vicinity. "Come to bed, Methos," Duncan said before his friend could over think it: before Methos could find some altruistic reason not to take advantage of Duncan's grief or his own. Before he could convince himself that he could set it aside and not feel it was some bizarre healing ritual or reaffirmation of his own life's worth.

Then Duncan was close enough to silence a protest that was never made. Close enough to do something before the moment was lost. The first touch of lips reinstated the memories squandered only moments earlier, the first yielding giving Duncan an answer that, if it wasn't the one he wanted, was at least not one he didn't want. It was no culmination of long buried desire, but something fresh and new and too fleeting to be put off for a safer or better time. The dizziness returned, the details of the room fading in a blur that made him restless and a little afraid. The desire to stop this speeding carousel of emotion was strong and he had to drag air into his lungs to think clearly at all.

Methos' mouth was at his throat, hands at his breast; long-fingered spiders that seemed to be everywhere and biting into his flesh, while Duncan caught only cloth and the warmth below. He pressed down, looking for the edge of the sweater and found only more cloth, soft and fresh and tight across heat that made the fire seem superfluous.

The carousel slowed with the whisper of his name, and his grip shifted to catch Methos' face, to touch his lips with thumbs and his own breath. His name was whispered again and there was a gentle bite on his thumb, Methos' tongue darting out to soothe the small hurt. Then Methos was stepping back, Duncan's fingers sliding over his jaw and chin but it was only to reach down and complete what Duncan had meant to do moments before.

Bare skin flowed forward to meet his questing hands, muscles reacted to his touch and to the quickening of breath that flowed over his shoulder and neck to once more provide him with air to breathe. The threat of over thinking was gone, lost under an assault on his senses that he could only hope he gave back with equal passion. Hands slid beneath the loose jersey pants he wore, molding and firming his flesh to match the desire pressed to his groin, and then it was not so much carousel as free fall – broken by a whuff of air from both of them and the softness of down and cotton on the bed. When he finally managed to kick off the jersey trapping his legs he was met by bare skin and only a brief thought as to how Methos had managed to get undressed when getting naked had seemed a monumental task to Duncan.

But Methos was bare and pale and smooth save where he was neither pale nor smooth, all of which Duncan was able to identify as they twisted and tangled bodies and intentions together in one urgently pleasurable puzzle to be sorted out with this piece here and that piece there. Only Duncan wasn't sure they were working from the same cover picture.

He lost the taste of Methos' mouth and desperately wished it back until a warm, wet glove slid over his cock and the only thing he could taste was his own blood. Panic flared and he thrust, terrified momentarily that this would be taken from him too, and he locked his legs around the shoulders pressing to the insides of his thighs and felt hands gentle him, stroke him until the fear receded and the pleasure returned.

He pushed himself up, almost falling back again at the overwhelming sense of ...of something he felt at seeing Methos between his legs, mouth soft and relaxed as lips and tongue moved moistly over Duncan's flesh. Duncan heaved and Methos met him, cheeks hollowing as he slid back again, awkward under the weight of Duncan's legs and Duncan moved them slightly. He felt the soft chuckle along his flesh, sending a shiver through him as Methos opened him wider, lifting him like a rare delicacy to the palate of his mouth. His lover's gaze flickered upward to catch and hold Duncan's, fully aware of what his actions were doing to his victim -- and Duncan felt the part, for he could not have resisted such a cobra-eyed stare.

Save the gaze was neither fatal nor calculating. Methos was taking his pleasure not only from the taste of Duncan, from the feel of his body and his rapid gasps for breath, but from the sight of him. He repeated movements that made Duncan arch and quiver, adding tension to an already taut body with touches and strength and a rhythm Duncan couldn't follow but could certainly appreciate. If he could think.

Then the warmth was gone but not the wetness and Duncan groaned as his legs were parted and shifted and moved and set down again, his cock throbbing and angry at being denied, then it was all he could do to breathe. Methos filled his vision, his attention, was the target for his hands when he needed to hold onto something, and his hands were the anchor Methos used. Heat again and a gasp and cry that wasn't his own, Methos' body splayed across his, tight muscles pronounced under flushed skin as he settled and shifted, opening himself as he had opened Duncan, offering himself to the show of lust and desire he'd coaxed.

"Oh, Christ," Duncan breathed, catching a long fingered hand and the muscular swell of a buttock to pull Methos down, then pushing up, seating himself deeply in the heat and friction of a body trembling in its efforts to receive him.

He held, holding Methos as well, gazes locking again in a pause between force and surrender. A moment of doubt, quickly passed over as their joined hands closed over the angry flag of Methos' surrender. Methos groaned again, a low growl of sound that could have been denial or acquiescence, panting harshly at the touch, eyes glitter-dark and narrowed, breath as stuttering as Duncan's as their fitted bodies came to resist less and demand a truce – if not a hasty conclusion.

Duncan was ridden as any priceless thoroughbred might be, gently touched, firmly mastered. His grip on the rein of Methos' desire might not even have existed save to guide or approve now and then, even when his grip became slick and demanding, wanting to wring every last sound of passion from the arched throat and silence those same sounds with his mouth. He bucked and pushed and fought through the end of his course, grinding his mouth to Methos' as harshly as he ground his body into the other man's, holding him still until there was no reason or strength to hold onto anything any longer. The warmth and ache of it all filtered back slowly, and he moved to accommodate Methos' legs as the other man stretched out, sweat slicked skin making it easier to slip to the side and lay there, face half buried in Duncan's chest until Methos spread out a bit more. Duncan was the one that turned to his side, soothing the long muscles along his sides and the short tight ones across Methos' belly, feeling the slickness of his release in-between the loose thighs, still warm, and his touch sent another shudder through his lover's body.

Maybe it was demons. Something rode Duncan still: green-gold eyes were wider and paler than he recalled, watching him as he continued his play and tease – or torment. His mouth once more silencing the small sounds and ignoring the demanding tug of fingers in his hair. It could have been a warning or a plea but he moved neither hand nor mouth, Methos' thighs clamping hard and tight around his wrist as he dug in, pressed further, using his body to pin the other man, holding one wrist in a tight fist. Mouth and body plundered and took and only fleetingly did he think that Methos could have escaped if he wanted to. If he tried a little harder.

When he lifted his head, Methos turned away, throat working to either contain or produce sounds that would maybe have made sense, body writhing to the demanding pace Duncan set, sweat slicked and flushed but not fighting as he twitched and trembled and finally looked back with a startling mix of outrage and hurt and lust in his eyes. The sheer force of it made Duncan stop and then Methos did make a sound, eyes sliding from his and head tossing in the blankets as he ground himself on Duncan's fingers, arching once more as if begging for mercy.

Duncan let go of his wrist and abandoned his mouth for the angry rise of flesh that dared him, taunted him, offered him a way to make the torment less a thing of power and more a parlay for peace. He'd forgotten what war they were fighting by the time the taste and scent and feel of Methos was in his mouth, on his skin, filling his nostrils with a harsh and bitter fragrance. Salt and ashes, bitter but not unbearable, and it wasn't that at all as he lifted his head to watch the end of it rather than steal it away, feeling it was no waste as his fingers smoothed the pale skin once more; this time to soothe rather than punish.

Finally Methos was quiet, not quite recovered in body or temper, but quiet, his hand resting on Duncan's bent thigh, and gaze resting on Duncan's face, eyes half hooded from either fatigue or passion, or the lashes deliberately lowered to obscure his expression. He stretched a little, bending one knee and turned his face toward the fire, the light bathing it in colors warm enough to bring life to the marble cut of his profile or to bathe that same stone in blood.

No words came now, as they hadn't the day before or the day before that or before that. But they had to come or he'd be locked in this silence forever.

"It never gets easier, Duncan," Methos whispered, his eyes closed. "Everything we start has to come to end at some point. Even for Immortals. Maybe especially for Immortals."

"I didn't...didn't mean to hurt you," Duncan not sure if he meant his actions or his words.

"Yes, you did. Then, at that moment, for that moment. It's passed. The words don't stay forever," he said and it was another spin of the carousel to discover they weren't talking about the same thing, or may be they were, or maybe Methos was talking about himself. It wasn't a carousel – it was a roulette wheel.

Duncan lay down, arms coming around the broad chest and narrower hips, Methos moving to accommodate his embrace, leaning his head back so they were nearly cheek to cheek. His hand shifted to touch Duncan's hair.

When Duncan woke, it was chill. The fire had faded with neither of them to tend it. He reached back to pull at the edge of the blanket and pull it around them, not so much damp as cool. Methos woke or half woke to tuck it tightly under himself, wrapping them in a cocoon that rapidly warmed with the trapped heat from both their bodies. He never really shifted out of Duncan's embrace, but pulled him closer; legs shifting to allow Duncan to stretch a little and find a comfortable spot for his leg between his lover's.

But Duncan was awake, the sleep soft scent of Methos in his nose, the warmth of the hard body easing aches in his muscles, if not his soul. Had they started something or was something ending? His mouth found the join of shoulder and neck as if taste could tell him, and heard a sleepy murmur in response. Then another when Duncan used his forearm to turn Methos' head toward him, to kiss and sample and take gently what was offered. They were too close and the warmth too marked to ward off desire again as the chill would have. Duncan's breath caught again as he pushed and found his way in the darkness, neither of them resisting or needing to this time, and the position easier, the fit of their bodies as smooth as the silence between them.

More flex and relax, a hiss of pleasure that Duncan used to wash Methos' skin. A stroke and squeeze to match their rhythms and the fall was not free or fast but slow and gentle, touching down with only moments in between them and Duncan was no closer to the answer now than he had been before.

When the question came again, he was alone in the bed, the fire built up again and the blanket twisted around him like an over-fluffed shroud. He rubbed the sands of fatigue from his eye and found his clothes folded neatly on the chair at the end of the bed. Damp air signified that not only had Methos risen before him and managed it without waking Duncan, but that he had bathed and even now was partaking of a day that Duncan was just acknowledging had arrived.

His own room was orderly, the bed really made and smoothed and he showered and dressed, unsure if he should just go ahead and pack or ask if he could stay.

He found coffee but no Methos and a hunch showed his car alone on the cobbles. He found the note while getting coffee – "Gone to get breakfast – M." – and relaxed a bit. Methos expected him to be here when he got back.

Or not, because there was bread in the kitchen and eggs in the cold box.

He took his cup with him to pack, fitting everything back into the case and his sword in the fold of fabric in his coat. His keys had been dropped carefully in the dish beside his bed. Done but no more certain, he rinsed the cup out and set it to drain, glanced at the garden and was convinced he could smell rosemary on the still air.

He locked the door behind him, not even checking for gargoyles and had the bag in the boot of his car when the black gleam of Methos' four-wheeled toy pulled in beside him. No coat as Methos got out, just a heavy sweater and there was frost and condensation still on the vehicle's glass. It may well have been the start of the engine that had wakened him as the quiet returned so profoundly when Methos cut the engine. He had a small bag in his arms, a few things and probably not absolutely necessary – the waft of oranges and some spicy tart apple scent.

The look on the face was carefully neutral, no sign of marble and granite though, only an unspoken request for an explanation, quickly masked.

He'd had enough of stone and words that wouldn't be remembered. The cry of angels, the lamentation of a thousand voices through the ages wouldn't drown out this.

"What have we begun?" he asked, not letting Methos move away – not sure the other man had planned to, but just in case.

For once it was the right question. "We just ended something," Methos said but before the earth could drop from under Duncan's feet, he got a smile, a glitter of light not from steel but from white teeth and eyes that would never be brown or any color that would properly fit upon a driver's license or passport. "I, for one, think the lone wolf routine is highly overrated. Conner would agree," he added, but not deliberately: a thought, fleeting and reflective and he looked at Duncan, closing the distance between them with a few steps and a demand that cut so deep Duncan couldn't breathe again. "Don't demand promises that can't be kept. Until it ends...this is all we have." The kiss was swift and harsh. "And you have to carry your own damn bag back up. What have you got in there, stone?" Methos said and, with a shiver, was gone, fumbling keys to unlock the door.

Maybe one more stone, but he wouldn't need it today or never, maybe. Maybe someone else would, to lament his loss. He shook his head and fetched the bag out again, feeling it lighter than when he'd arrived or even when he'd brought it down minutes before.

He couldn't for the life of him, certainly, remember where he'd left the extra weight.

 

~end~~

 

Feedback to maygra@bellsouth.net

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to for Melina for finding this. 
> 
> The Characters herein, aren't mine. all rights remain with Gregory Widen, Davis/Panzer Productions, and all those other folks who poured their time and energy into the Highlander Franchise (may they live long and prosper). My very grateful thank you to Racheal who inspired and then betaed and kept us all in the here and now, and to the women of the October project, who inspired me to finish this in a magic weekend, and for all the people who have lost someone dear who just wanted someone to make it all make sense to them again, if only for a little while. 
> 
> This was written late in 2000, I believe. The original illustration was of a light house I believe.
> 
> I like this piece. It's quiet. If it has a companion piece (and it doesn't explicitly), I'd stay it was Stone Soup.


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